Picked up 5 this week 4 at the same place and one roadkill today. So 13 since I sold essence a year ago. One large the rest were smalls all in bad condition from yellowing stripe and 2 with skin issues. I figure that to be a 90% drop from past years the trend so far is the younger ones faired better than the larger ones.

Most years the skunks are extremely dehydrated at this stage in the spring but that’s not the case this year so far. I’d expect a quick recovery with the litters they can produce let’s hope the weather holds up.

I pick one up today also

Yeah, they're messing with my bee hives already. Set a cage trap in front of hive and come back to a dead skunk. Bees revenge is permanent.

The ones I caught 6 weeks ago where healthy and very fat while the ones I caught the past week had very little if any fat if any and have skin issues.

I never saw a skunk for years. Then I got 2 the last part of trapping season and now they are on all my cameras. I need to figure out how to store the essence. It all evaporated out of a closed glass jar.

They have been moving here for over a month. Not seeing as many roadkill anymore. Had one on my back acreage a few days ago that was dying of something. Couldn't move much but it's head and neck. Makes me worry that it may have had rabies. It was dead a couple of hours later.

The smaller caged one did not have much juice but the bigger hard hit roadkill sported a little over an ounce so that worked out. Since I had to pod that roadkill I had 3 sets of pods in the freezer I thawed out to do at the same time. That keeps the stink days down to a minimum.

Always see a lot around here on the roads this time of year but I don't think I've ever seen so many broads before. There was one that looked almost solid white. I stopped to get it and there was no skunk smell but when I picked it up belly was rank and smelled rotten. I guess it had been there longer than it appeared. It's been so warm I haven't even stopped to look at another one.

If they can get access to the underside of the skunk, it will be a goner.
I had to quit raising bees due to the large number of skunks, but more so because of all the agricultural spraying in my area wiping out the bees.